Q&A Forum

by Francis MacNutt
Winter 1997

Q: In the first article of the newsletter, you celebrate the people of CHM. But what about the ministry itself? What is God doing within the mission of CHM?

A: Many things have happened in the past 10 years that have clearly been the results of divine direction and have significantly influenced our mission. The number of people coming to CHM for prayer is at an all–time high. Last year, we prayed for over 3,000 requests here at the center through the physical laying–on of hands. This is in addition to the thousands of people for whom Judith and I, as well as other members of the staff, pray during our travels and the over 90,000 annual requests for which we pray through intercession.

So, I guess you could say that multiplying the ministers leads to multiplied ministry. That does not simply mean we are praying for more people. Through growth of our numbers, we are able to teach more people how to pray. In this way, the Gospel mission is multiplied hundredfold. We have developed three levels of teaching, now available on both video and audiotape. So now, we can reach more people with more and better teaching than ever before. We have so many invitations for speaking engagements that we would never meet all the needs out there by traveling to these places to speak. Using the media of video and audio cassettes, we can better try to meet the needs of those desiring to learn about healing and the healing ministry.

We are discovering wonderful things about the Lord's healing power. This year, we have expanded upon what we have learned about "soaking" prayer, i.e. spending time praying with people in order to bring healing to completion, by starting Intensive Prayer Ministry once a month. Every month a dozen people receive three days of intensive prayer ministry from CHM prayer teams. We began these "IPMs" in June, and they have been beautifully received. Everyone who has come has been truly blessed, and many have received healing in one form or another. The only difficulty in holding these IPMs is that we can only take a few people each month. The ultimate answer is that we need more prayer ministers, and we feel confident that the Lord will take care of this need, just like he does all the others.

For 30 years I have dreamed of doing scientific research that would verify what we see all the time about the healing effects of prayer. Without such research, the medical community as a whole simply would remain skeptical about the value of prayer. Happily, I met Dr. Dale Matthews of the National Institute of Healthcare Research, and he was excited when I proposed doing research on prayer, since he also had dreamed of this. The result is an extraordinary study in which CHM prayer teams prayed with patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. The results have to be followed up for a year, so the study is not yet complete. But even now we can say that the results have been truly miraculous. On Nov. 5, Dr. Matthews came to Jacksonville to speak and tell us about this pioneering study. We believe this to be just the beginning of many studies that will bring together the religious and scientific communities that have so often been separated in the past. We are grateful to our Lord for choosing us to be part of this notable reconciliation.

As you can see, we have seen some developments in the healing ministry that are encouraging to Christians everywhere. Our prayer now is that God will bless us even more in the next 10 years than He has in the past 10. We are confident in our God, who proves Himself to us over and over again. He is so faithful!

Francis MacNutt is a Founding Director and Executive Committee member of CHM.